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Updated: Jun 28, 2025
Live Imaging and Quantification of Viral Infection in K18 hACE2 Transgenic Mice Using Reporter-Expressing Recombinant SARS-CoV-2
Published on: November 5, 2021
ACE2 and TMPRSS2 expression in patients before, during, and after SARS-CoV-2 infection
Henrique Borges da Silva Grisard1,2,3, Marcos André Schörner1, Fernando Hartmann Barazzetti1,2,3
1Laboratório de Biologia Molecular, Microbiologia e Sorologia, Departamento de Análises Clínicas, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil.
Abstract:
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) were constantly under the scientific spotlight, but most studies evaluated ACE2 and TMPRSS2 expression levels in patients infected by SARS-CoV-2. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the expression levels of both proteins before, during, and after-infection. For that, nasopharyngeal samples from 26 patients were used to measure ACE2/TMPRSS2 ex-pression via qPCR. Symptomatic patients presented lower ACE2 expression levels before and after the infection than those in asymptomatic patients; however, these levels increased during SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, symptomatic patients presented higher expression levels of TMPRSS2 pre-infection, which decreased in the following periods. In summary, ACE2 and TMPRSS2 expression levels are potential risk factors for the development of symptomatic COVID-19, and the presence of SARS-CoV-2 potentially modulates those levels.
